MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Fariñas reply to Raul Castro: determined to continue “fasting until death”

On Sunday Raul Castro said Cuba will not be “blackmailed” by hunger strikers

Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas accepted as a challenge the warning launched on Sunday by president Raul Castro that Havana will not be “blackmailed or yield” to “hunger strikers” and promised that now “more than ever” he was determined “to continue fasting until death”.

“Now more than ever we must continue with the hunger strike, because Raul (Castro) threats were a challenge, and we accept the challenge and we are going to die with dignity”, said Fariñas from the Santa Clara hospital, 280 kilometres from Havana, where he has been hospitalized since March 11.

“I wasn’t surprised by the intolerant attitude and message of Raul (Castro)”, because “we have also witnessed that the Cuban government historically has shown to act irrationally”, said the 48 year old psychologist, part time journalist and once a member of the Cuban elite forces.

On Sunday at the closing of a congress of Young Communists, UJC, Raúl Castro promised that whatever happens, Havana will not yield or be blackmailed by the Fariñas case, and again blamed him for whatever comes out of the fasting protest.

“We will never give in to blackmail, from any country or group of countries, no matter how powerful” Raul said in a nationally televised speech.

Faced with international criticism over hunger-striking dissidents, Raul Castro alos accused the United States and Europe of launching “the most ferocious” media campaign against Cuba in decades.

“He calls blackmail a citizen’s petition and does take into consideration that for over fifty years they have been blackmailing the Cuban people with terror imposed by communism”, said Fariñas, who has been on hunger strike since last February 24 in demand for the release of 26 political prisoners with fragile health conditions.

Fariñas said he was feeling “quite well” and after Raul Castro announced “he will let us die”, there is “nothing more to say”.

“We invite the world to contemplate the cruelty and lack of humanisms of this totalitarian regime” added Fariñas who begun his protest a day after the death of political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo, (February 24) following two months and a half of fasting in demand for improved jail conditions.

Alicia Hernandez, mother of the dissident said the health of her son was “much deteriorated” and any moment “could fall into a state of comma”.

In his speech to an annual meeting of the Union of Communist Youth on Sunday, Castro accused the United States and Europe of “hypocritically holding up the flag of human rights.”

He called both Zapata Tamayo and Farinas common criminals who were manipulated by foreign powers.

Cuba says there are no political prisoners on the island ruled by the Castro family. They say dissidents are being paid by enemy governments to destabilize the country